Beth Emet the Free Synagogue's Book Kvutzah (group)

Our book club is located at Beth Emet the Free Synagogue in Evanston. We are entering our third year of reading, discussing and enjoying each other's company.

A recent favorite was "The Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Pie Society" by Mary Ann Shaffer and Annie Barrows. It is one of the only books that we all liked. We enjoyed the epistolary format and the way the book tied together all of the disparate lives.

We often have a mixed response in terms of liking or not caring for a book selection. There really isn't one book that we have disliked on the whole. Maybe we are essentially optimists, but we always get something out of any book we read.

We would most like to meet the Israeli writer Amos Oz ("A Tale of Love and Darkness," "A Panther in the Basement"). We have read a couple of his books and are very interested in his views on Israeli society, but mostly we would like to know about the darkness that comes through in so much of his writing. We have vowed never to read his books during the long dark days of winter again.

Some books we loved: "The Yiddish Policemen's Union" by Michael Chabon, "The Girls from Ames: A Story of Women and a Forty-Year Friendship" by Jeffrey Zaslow, "The Zookeeper's Wife: A War Story" by Diane Ackerman and "The Help" by Kathryn Stockett